The Los Angeles Lakers have gone from winning a championship less than two years ago to sitting at home watching the play-in last season. A team with Anthony Davis and LeBron James was unable to find a way to surpass a young Pelicans team and was sitting at home for the entire playoffs.
Injuries are the primary reason the Lakers didn’t have a chance to make the playoffs. However, poor roster construction set the Lakers up for failure from the start and left the team with zero chance to make the Finals even if they slipped into the playoffs last season.
Learning from their mistakes, the Lakers’ front office has had a much better offseason, setting the team up not only to return to the playoffs but to contend for a title. As always, this team is going to be reliant on LeBron James staying healthy.
If James cannot stay healthy the team isn’t going to have a chance at hanging in the playoff race. Davis hasn’t proven he can carry a team and this team is built to work around both Davis and James. If both can stay healthy for a majority of the season there are clear reasons to believe this team will win a title.
Here are 5 reasons why the 2022-23 season will end in a Lakers title:
1. League parity
For the first time in a decade, it is hard to find one super team in the league. Despite the Nets having immense talent and the Warriors being the defending champs, there isn’t the LeBron James-led Heat or the Durant Golden State Warriors in this league this season. There is more parity in the league than we have seen in a very long time with 5-10 teams being able to make a legitimate championship argument heading into the season.
The Suns, Bucks, Warriors, Celtics, 76ers, and Grizzlies all have arguments as title favorites while solid offseasons have the Hawks, Clippers, Heat, Cavs, and Nets all forcing their way into the conversation. The point here is that there isn’t a clear title favorite that should scare the Lakers going into the season.
If LeBron and Davis are both healthy and at their best, they are more than capable of taking down the defending champion Warriors. There is a reason Golden State recruited Durant when LeBron was ruling the East and meeting them in the Finals each season.
Without Durant, the Warriors knew they couldn’t beat LeBron and if James can stay healthy this season there isn’t a team that clearly is better than LeBron’s Lakers.
2. The Lakers have gotten younger and defensive-minded this off-season
When the Lakers won the bubble championship two seasons ago they were a perfectly balanced unit. The team had veterans but also players who came in off the bench and played hustle defense and gave the team extra possessions. Give LeBron extra touches and you are unlikely to beat his team unless you are one of the aforementioned super teams.
Lonnie Walker, Patrick Beverley, Thomas Bryant, and Kendrick Nunn are the clearest examples of this mentality. Players that give the Lakers a huge defensive boost while still offering reliable offense that will give the team a chance.
It is exactly the off-season this team needed to have a year after adding Russell Westbrook and the 2012 all-star team to their bench. The Lakers were old, slow, and unable to score with any consistency.
These new Laker additions are going to change that as role players who have played their whole careers hustling and playing hard to earn roles on their former teams. This is the exact type of team LeBron and Davis will thrive with as the clear stars leading a group of great role players capable of helping the Lakers win their second title with James.
3. Russell Westbrook will improve or leave Los Angeles
Whether or not the Lakers will find a trade for Westbrook before their season tips off in a little over two weeks remains to be seen. What is known heading into the season is the Lakers have better point guard depth with Dennis and Beverley both on the roster than they had all of last season.
The Lakers can win a title with those two players serving as their point guards. Westbrook is either going to have to cut his turnovers and learn to play hustle defense and play off the ball or become familiar with the Lakers bench.
Westbrook was a large part of the reason the season went wrong for the Lakers last season. This year Los Angeles is in a position to either get the best from Russ and watch the point guard remind the league what he is capable of or bench or trade Westbrook if he continues to struggle as he did last season.
Los Angeles might be saddled with his contract but they have clear options that allow them to quickly pivot from Russ if he continues to struggle. Either the Lakers get a version of Westbrook that makes them better or they pivot away from the point guard with a player in Dennis who has already proven he can help this team win a championship.
4. Anthony Davis is going to have a huge season
People quickly forget just how elite Anthony Davis was before injuries derailed the forward over the last two seasons. This Lakers team had the Suns down in their playoff series before Davis was injured and the Suns came back making it all the way to the Finals a year ago.
Last season Davis was bad, there is no excuse for how poorly he played. However, looking at his career last season was the outlier for Davis who has consistently been an elite player throughout his career.
Davis has heard the off-season chatter and watched as he has continually been disrespected two seasons after arguably being the best or 2nd best player on a team that won a title.
He is an elite defender who has a great offensive skill set that is more than capable of carrying a team without LeBron. Davis is going to remind the league just how great he is capable of being and return to the player he has been for the majority of his career.
5. LeBron James is fueled by disrespect
If there is one thing we have consistently learned about LeBron James throughout his career it is he is so often fueled by disrespect. In Miami, it was proving he could win a title and be the best player in the league.
After winning two titles with the Heat, James returned to a franchise that disrespected him and turned him into a villain to prove them wrong and deliver a title to his hometown team.
When LeBron left the Cavs after winning a title the new narrative was he was moving to Los Angeles to focus on his business and grow his career not win titles. LeBron won his first title in Los Angeles a year later and what was his message after the Lakers won the title?
James demanded his respect and was obviously emotional that he had proven what he was still capable of.
Russell Westbrook’s wife Nina posts cryptic IG story alluding to the Lakers
Russell Westbrook's wife, Nina, posted a cryptic Instagram story alluding to her husband's uncertain role with the Los Angeles Lakers.
LeBron’s critics have never been louder as the superstar is aging and coming off of a season that watched him miss the playoffs altogether if his history tells us anything LeBron and the Lakers are in for a huge 2022-23 season.